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[casi-analysis] casi-news digest, Vol 1 #103 - 1 msg



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Today's Topics:

   1. Signs of a Looted Iraq (Hassan)

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Message: 1
Date: Sun, 30 May 2004 07:45:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: Hassan <hasseini@DELETETHISyahoo.com>
Subject: Signs of a Looted Iraq
To: CASI newsclippings <newsclippings@casi.org.uk>,
  IAC discussion <iac-discussion@yahoogroups.com>


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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/28/international/middleeast/28SCRA.html


In the Scrapyards of Jordan, Signs of a Looted Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ

Published: May 28, 2004




AHAB, Jordan, May 26 =97 As the United States spends billions of dollars to=
 rebuild Iraq's civil and military infrastructure, there is increasing evid=
ence that parts of sensitive military equipment, seemingly brand-new compon=
ents for oil rigs and water plants and whole complexes of older buildings a=
re leaving the country on the backs of flatbed trucks

By some estimates, at least 100 semitrailers loaded with what is billed as =
Iraqi scrap metal are streaming each day into Jordan, just one of six count=
ries that share a border with Iraq.

American officials say sensitive equipment is, in fact, closely monitored a=
nd much of the rest that is leaving is legitimate removal and sale from a s=
hattered country. But many experts say that much of what is going on amount=
s to a vast looting operation.

In the past several months, the International Atomic Energy Agency, based i=
n Vienna, has been closely monitoring satellite photographs of hundreds of =
military-industrial sites in Iraq. Initial results from that analysis are j=
arring, said Jacques Baute, director of the agency's Iraq nuclear verificat=
ion office: entire buildings and complexes of as many as a dozen buildings =
have been vanishing from the photographs.

"We see sites that have totally been cleaned out," Mr. Baute said.

The agency started the program in December, after a steel vessel contaminat=
ed with uranium, probably an artifact of Saddam Hussein's pre-1991 nuclear =
program, turned up in a Rotterdam scrapyard. The shipment was traced to a J=
ordanian company that was apparently unaware that the scrap contained radio=
active material.

In the last several weeks, Jordan has again caught the attention of interna=
tional officials, as pieces of Iraqi metal bearing tags put in place by the=
 United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, establi=
shed to monitor Iraqi disarmament during Mr. Hussein's rule, have been spot=
ted in Jordanian scrapyards. The observation of items tagged by the commiss=
ion, known as Unmovic, has not been previously disclosed.

"Unmovic has been investigating the removal from Iraq of materials that may=
 have been subject to monitoring, and that investigation is ongoing," said =
Jeff Allen, a spokesman for the commission. "So we've been aware of the iss=
ue," he said. "We've been apprised of the details of the Rotterdam incident=
 and have been in touch with Jordanian officials."

Recent examinations of Jordanian scrapyards, including by a reporter for Th=
e New York Times, have turned up an astounding quantity of scrap metal and =
new components from Iraq's civil infrastructure, including piles of valuabl=
e copper and aluminum ingots and bars, large stacks of steel rods and water=
 pipe and giant flanges for oil equipment =97 all in nearly mint condition =
=97 as well as chopped-up railroad boxcars, huge numbers of shattered Iraqi=
 tanks and even beer kegs marked with the words "Iraqi Brewery."

"There is a gigantic salvage operation, stripping anything of perceived val=
ue out of the country," said John Hamre, president and chief executive of t=
he Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan Washington=
 research institute, which sent a team to Iraq and issued a report on recon=
struction efforts at the request of the Pentagon last July.

"This is systematically plundering the country," Dr. Hamre said. "You're go=
ing to have to replace all of this stuff."

The United States contends that the prodigious Middle Eastern trade in Iraq=
i scrap metal is closely monitored by Iraqi government ministries to ensure=
 that nothing crossing the border poses a security risk or siphons material=
 from new projects. In April, L. Paul Bremer III, the occupation's senior o=
fficial in Iraq, and the Iraqi Ministry of Trade established rules for lice=
nsing the export of scrap metal from the country.

The sites now being monitored by the atomic energy agency include former mi=
ssile factories, warehouses, industrial plants and sites believed to contai=
n "dual use" equipment like high-precision machine tools that could be used=
 either for civilian purposes or for making components for nuclear and othe=
r weaponry. Mr. Baute said that the analysis had been completed at about a =
dozen sites and that the agency was working to prepare a report on the enti=
re monitoring program.

Sam Whitfield, a spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, said th=
at penalties for not obtaining a license or abiding by its terms were sever=
e for a trucker. "If he does not have it or is found to be exporting scrap =
illegally, not only can his load be seized but his truck can be seized," he=
 said.

Mr. Whitfield said that the overall quantity of scrap might not be surprisi=
ng, considering that there were, for example, an estimated 3,000 damaged ta=
nks and other military vehicles in Iraq as a result of a series of wars. Th=
ose vehicles are being legitimately scrapped, he said.

"There's huge volumes of scrap out there, just all over Iraq," he said.

A senior American intelligence official said the idea that the material to =
build missiles or nuclear devices might be being exported from the military=
-industrial sites was "far-fetched."

"It's conceivable that some of this material might be dual-use in nature," =
the official said, adding that "what appears to be happening is simply loot=
ing."

Mr. Whitfield asserted that the coalition had put a stop to widespread loot=
ing in Iraq. But a visit to an enormous scrapyard on the side of a dusty hi=
ll surrounded by goat herds in this town about 10 miles southeast of Amman =
raises serious questions about that assertion. Cranes and men with torches =
pick through seemingly endless piles of steel, aluminum and copper that wor=
kers there say has come almost exclusively from Iraq.

On a recent afternoon, roughly 100 trucks, many with yellow Iraqi license p=
lates, were lined up near the entrance to the scrapyard or maneuvering with=
 inches to spare inside, their engines snorting as they kicked up the flour=
like dust.

Yousseff Wakhian, a scrapyard worker wearing a gray jumpsuit and a cap with=
 a New York Yankees insignia, said that 60 to 100 trucks had come in that d=
ay from Iraq and 50 had left with loads of the scrap to be sold elsewhere.

Some of the piles contain items that might =97 or might not =97 have arrive=
d as part of legitimate scrap operations. There is stripped copper cable fr=
om a high-voltage electrical system, jumbled piles of tank treads, big engi=
ne blocks and crankshafts and thick steel walls connected to a door with le=
ttering indicating that it was part of a building at an airport.

Last year, there were widespread reports of looting of electrical transmiss=
ion lines and military bases, among other things.

But Muhammad al-Dajah, an engineer who is technical director Jordanian free=
-trade zones like the Sahab scrapyard, pointed with chagrin to piles of oth=
er items that hardly looked as if they belonged in a shipment of scrap meta=
l. There were new 15-foot-long bars of carbon steel, water pipes a foot in =
diameter stacked in triangular piles 10 feet high, and the large flanges he=
 identified as oil-well equipment.

"It's still new," Mr. Dajah said, "and worth a lot."

"Why are they here?" he asked rhetorically, and then said, referring to the=
 devastation in Iraq. "They need it there."

The scrap operation has not been without incident, Mr. Dajah said. A few mo=
nths ago workers cutting apart an automobile at Zarqa, another free-trade z=
one, set off a concealed bomb that killed one of them, he said.

An Iraqi truck driver at Sahab, Ahmed Zughayer, said the trip from Karbala,=
 where he picked up a load of tank parts that were still piled in the back =
of his truck, was insufferable because of delays at the Jordanian border.

"First time and last," he said when asked how often he had made the trip. "=
Seven days at the border being inspected. And here two days."

Mr. Zughayer said Jordanian military personnel had combed through the load =
and probed it with detection equipment. Officials at the atomic energy agen=
cy said that since the Rotterdam incident, radiation detectors at Iraq's bo=
rders had repeatedly picked up generally weak radioactive emissions from de=
ep within loads of scrap.

The agency said that in one incident on May 15, radiation detectors began c=
licking when a truck carrying a load of scrap stopped at the Habur border c=
rossing with Turkey; the truck was turned back.

Several Middle Eastern analysts said that the widespread traffic in Iraqi s=
crap did not have all the hallmarks of an above-board operation.

"What we are finding out in Iraq, there are gangs, some of them from the ol=
d days, some of them new with corruption, and they can get away with it," s=
aid Walid Khadduri, an Iraqi who is editor of the Middle East Economic Surv=
ey in Cyprus and was in the country as recently as January.

"It is really mayhem," Mr. Khadduri said. "There is no law."

Labib Kamhawi, a Jordanian political analyst who has done business in Iraq =
under the oil-for-food program, said that there was in fact much talk in th=
e business community of deals "to ship new things under the title of scrap.=
"

Beyond what has been seen at the scrapyards, Mr. Kamhawi offered no specifi=
c evidence that those deals were taking place. But a former high-ranking Jo=
rdanian military official said that functioning pieces of, say, sophisticat=
ed electronics from surface-to-air missile batteries or precision machine t=
ools almost could not avoid being passed around with scrap, since it is so =
difficult to destroy such equipment completely.

The official also said there was far from just a single Jordanian scrapyard=
 doing a brisk business in Iraqi machinery and scrap. He said that only a f=
ew days before, he had seen nearly an entire Russian-made T-55 tank with Ir=
aqi markings, its muzzle cut off by a blowtorch, sitting on a flatbed truck=
 outside a steel plant near the road from Amman to the main commercial airp=
ort.

On a recent day, the plant, identified on a sign as part of the United Iron=
 and Steel Manufacturing Company, a Jordanian business, had three trucks wi=
th Baghdad license plates idling out front. At a tumbledown shack on the wa=
y toward piles of steel in the distance, a wiry, weathered security guard w=
ith a three-day growth of beard stopped a car carrying an American journali=
st and two Jordanians.

"No, you can't go in," said the guard, who identified himself as Azzam Tami=
mi. "I have orders."

A Jordanian asked Mr. Tamimi what was down among the piles of steel to warr=
ant barring visitors from the area.

"Nothing is in there," Mr. Tamimi said. "There is only destroyed Iraqi tank=
s from the war."

Douglas Jehl contributed reporting from Washington for this article.





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